Play Dead

Summary

Today’s #1 New York Times bestselling thriller writers agree: Ryan Brown’s compulsively readable first novel is unbeatable—a darkly humorous, rich and pungent zombie shocker that melds our national obsession with football and the newest wave of fascination with the undead.

For the first time in Killington High School history, the Jackrabbits football team is one win away from the district championship where it will face its most vicious rival, the Elmwood Heights Badgers. On the way to the game, the Jackrabbits’s bus plunges into a river, killing every player except for bad-boy quarterback Cole Logan who is certain the crash was no accident—given that Cole himself was severely injured in a brutal attack by three ski-masked men earlier that day. Bent on payback, Cole turns to a mysterious fan skilled in black magic to resurrect his teammates. But unless the undead Jackrabbits defeat their murderous rival on the field, the team is destined for hell. In a desperate race against time, with only his coach’s clever daughter, Savannah Hickman, to assist him, Cole must lead his zombie team to victory

. . . in a final showdown where the stakes aren’t just life or death—but damnation or salvation. Boundlessly imaginative and thrillingly satisfying, Play Dead gives small-town Texas an electrifying jolt of the supernatural, and is unquestioningly The Zombie Novel of the Year!

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Play Dead - Ryan Brown

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PROLOGUE

THE drums outside beat hard enough to form ripples in the water.

He knelt with his face only inches above the surface and watched the small concentric rings expand with each percussive thump.

He watched until his nausea subsided, then came up off his knees. The toilet was clean, but he kicked the flush handle anyway. He stepped out of the stall and struggled against shaky hands to thread the laces at the fly of his pants.

He felt worse for having not been sick. He had hoped that in getting sick he might purge himself of…everything.

The nerves. The fear. The regret.

Now he would carry all of it onto the field.

Hell, maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was the only way he could get through this.

His cleats tapped over slick tile as he moved past shower stalls, towel bins, Gatorade coolers, and a chalkboard on which remained the pale ghosts of innumerable X’s and O’s.

Back at his locker he continued to dress. Over the past four years the routine had become mindless, something he did as quickly as possible to get it over with. But now he was happy to stall. He approached the work methodically, taking special care with every detail. Shoelaces were double knotted, tucked in, and taped over. Ankles were wrapped as stiffly as plaster casts. His jersey—crisply pressed and wrapped snugly over his shoulder pads—went on last.

He reached above the locker and took down his helmet. Its appearance was in contrast to the immaculate jersey. Every well-earned scrape and nick had gone untouched. They were too precious, worn too proudly to be cleaned or buffed. He ran trembling fingers over the scars and the curling stickers and the screws filled with grit.

He pulled the helmet down over his ears. There was comfort in its tightness and weight. He sat and closed his eyes.

A peculiar silence hovered over the room.

In fact, there were sounds all around: cleats pecked at the floor, tape ripped, pads clacked, lockers slammed. And still the drums pounded outside. They came heavier now, each thump matched by the stomp of countless feet on wooden bleachers.

It was the absence of voices that made the room seem silent.

His eyes opened and he watched his teammates dress around him. Their movement was slow and labored, their eyes haunted. He wondered if the others felt any of the fear that gripped him. He had no doubt they carried the same fury that he did, but as he studied their hollow expressions, he saw no feeling at all, just a cold awareness of what had to be done in the next sixty minutes by the scoreboard clock.

From across the room the coach’s whistle blew and his stomach coiled.

Game time.

He stood and closed the locker.

He knew that tonight there would be no coach’s speech, no unifying chants or pregame rallying cries. And it was a night far too godless for a prayer.

Because this wasn’t a game about victory or defeat.

It wasn’t even a game about life or death.

After what he’d done, it had become a game about salvation or damnation.

CHAPTER 1

Three Days Earlier

GAME day.

Cole Logan had awoken and begun working long before the alarm went off. He considered it work even though it was something he did while lying in bed, his eyes closed. It usually took him a good half hour to run through the entire offensive playbook, watching the X’s and O’s shift around his mind like Scrabble tiles. Years of practice had enabled him to visualize with vivid clarity the pass routes of his primary and secondary receivers, to read shifting defenses and assess the balance of the field. He was about to start in on the no-huddle offensive series when the clock radio sounded.

…was brought to you by Hardware Dan’s on Jenkins and Mason. Find it all at Hardware Dan’s. The time is now six thirty.

The local announcer went on to wish everyone a cracking good morning and a happy Halloween.

Halloween?

So it was. He had forgotten about it until that moment. The holiday was just another thing that had faded into the background over the past few months, when he’d had little time to think about anything other than the X’s and O’s.

…can expect more clouds, with temperatures much cooler than yesterday’s. Highs in the upper forties with late-afternoon thunderstorms likely to hang around through the evening. Gonna be a sloppy night for football folks, so remember to bring . . .

Cole clicked off the radio, flung away the sheet, and came up off the mattress on the floor. His knees and ankles creaked as he rose onto his toes and stretched his arms toward the ceiling. He rotated his throwing arm until blood flowed into the gravelly joint.

Stepping over strewn gym clothes, he moved to the door and peered across the trailer’s narrow hallway. Two sets of feet poked out from beneath a twisted sheet on his mother’s bed. A tattoo wrapped around one of the man’s ankles. It looked like either a mermaid or a dragon. Something with scales. It might have been familiar, but he couldn’t be sure. They had all started to look alike lately.

Cole hadn’t bothered to check the time when his mother and the man had come stumbling in last night. He’d heard the front door swing open, some laughter, beers being cracked open. Then came two or three minutes of creaking springs before, finally, snoring.

He shut the door, slipped Guns N’ Roses into the CD player, and put on his headphones. He did fifty quick push-ups as Paradise City rang through his head, then he lit a Marlboro and smoked slowly as Axl Rose wailed through Sweet Child O’ Mine. When the song ended and the cigarette was finished, he stopped the CD and threw on the nearest T-shirt and Levi’s from the floor. At the dresser, he slipped a silver hoop into his earlobe, then ran gel through his matted black hair.

His little visitor came calling right on schedule, scratching at the window beside the dresser. Black Mona’s cats never slept in. The old woman in the next trailer over had to have three dozen of them now; they seemed to breed like a virus. There were times Cole wanted to shoot the damn things, especially when they appeared early on weekends. He’d have done it, too—shot them dead without remorse.

If the cats had belonged to anyone but Black Mona.

If even half the rumors he’d heard about the old woman were true, he wasn’t prepared to take any chances. In fact, to stay in her good graces, he had even made a habit of feeding her cats a little something when they came around.

He slid the window open a few inches. A gray tabby stood on the cooling unit below the sill. It cocked its head and gazed at him through sleepy eyes. He noticed the eyes were mismatched. One was coal black, the other crystalline blue. A plaid collar hung from its neck with a tarnished copper name tag that read COODLES. That was just one of the things he hated about cats—they always had stupid names.

Coodles blinked, stretched, yawned, and purred expectantly. Cole took mercy. Knowing he would surely come to regret the dependence that would follow, he tossed out what remained of last night’s bologna fold-over from the paper plate beside his mattress. The cat tucked in without so much as a sniff of inspection.

Cole slid the window closed and checked himself in the mirror. He’d take shit for it from school faculty, but he decided shaving could wait one more day. For fear of waking the sleeping couple across the hall, he decided that brushing his teeth could wait too. He smeared toothpaste over his teeth with an index finger, then grabbed his boots and leather jacket. He tiptoed through the trailer, took a pint carton of milk and a Pop-Tart from the kitchenette, and crept out the front door.

The rain-soaked Killington Daily was puffed like a sponge on the front step. He looked at his picture on the front page, taken at a press conference on the practice field the previous afternoon. Ink bled down his face, making him look like a young Alice Cooper in shoulder pads. JACKRABBITS SEEKING ONE MORE VICTORY FOR TRIP TO DISTRICT, the headline read. There was a caption below the photo: Rebel QB Cole Logan continues to prove the skeptics wrong, see story on 6A. Cole already knew the story and knew he’d like his own version of it better. He tossed the paper into the oil drum–cum–ash can beside the door.

The air was bitter and carried a dampness that ate through clothing and seeped into bones like acid. He slipped into his jacket and zipped it up under his chin. He pulled his boots up over wet socks, then leaned against the door, finished off the milk, and ate the Pop-Tart in three bites. He was debating having one more smoke before hitting the road when he heard a noise to his right—wet leaves shifting underfoot at the side of the house. There were multiple footfalls. He cursed. Word of the bologna sandwich must have spread through the local feline population. He feared that tomorrow the whole pride would show up expecting a buffet if he didn’t put a stop to things right now.

He went down the steps, picked up the rain-warped football that had lived in his yard since the fourth grade, and circled a wide arc across the gravel drive. He set his fingers on the laces, hoping one tightly thrown spiral into the middle of the pack would be enough to send the cats scurrying away for good.

But when the side of the trailer came into view, he saw only one cat, just below his bedroom window. It was the same cat he had fed moments before, only now it lay on its back, split open from chin to tail, its innards spilling onto the mud. A narrow ribbon of steam rose from the gaping wound.

The football fell from his limp hands. He spun around in place, not quite sure what he was looking for. A coyote most likely. Maybe a bobcat; they were rare in these parts, but not unheard of. He was more worried that it had been a dog. Mr. Garner down the street had a pair of pit bulls that were known to get loose from time to time. And unlike a coyote or bobcat, a pit bull wouldn’t hesitate to attack a man in the same ferocious manner it had attacked a helpless housecat.

He saw no movement in the surrounding woods, animal or otherwise.

His eyes went back to the cat. He approached it slowly, covering his nose to fend off the smell. Standing over it, he realized that the cat had not been ripped open by animal teeth. In fact, it hadn’t been ripped open at all, but rather sliced. The cut was clean, symmetrical. Nothing jagged. It almost looked to be the work of . . .

The first blow struck him across the back of the neck.

Before the pain even registered, the attackers spun him around, pinning his back against the side of the trailer. A stomach punch robbed him of the chance to cry out. Through swimming spots he saw two men before him and a third in the distance. All three wore jeans, sneakers, and ski masks under hooded sweatshirts.

The biggest of the three planted a forearm against Cole’s neck.

Cole tried to speak but only managed a strangled gasp.

Keep your fucking mouth shut! The shorter man picked up the dead cat with a gloved hand and mashed the carcass into Cole’s face.

Cole gagged and pitched forward, spitting gore.

We’ll do the talking here, Logan, hissed the taller man. His voice was calm, level. His breath was hot against Cole’s cheek. Our message is real simple, asshole. If you walk onto that field tonight, you’ll be the next one that gets cut. We’ll gut you like a fucking fish if you even suit up. Understood?

Cole shook his head, struggling against his restraints.

Another stomach punch halted his resistance.

The arm pressed harder against Cole’s neck. Today you take a dive, Logan. It’s real simple. You find a reason not to play, or we’ll give you one. And then we’ll go after the rest of the team. Understand?

Cole managed to draw a breath. A coppery taste trickled down his throat. Through clenched teeth, he told the men to go fuck themselves.

The attackers shared a glance.

A grin parted the taller man’s mouth. I kinda hoped you’d say that. His lips brushed against Cole’s ear. Because there’s nothing better in this world than putting the hurt on a candy-ass quarterback. He pressed a hand over Cole’s mouth. With the other hand he pulled a hatchet from under his sweatshirt.

His accomplice pinned Cole’s wrist to the side of the house.

The hatchet came up.

Let’s see you play now, motherfucker.

Then the blade came down hard on its mark.

CHAPTER 2

YOU type like a man."

Savannah Hickham lifted her hands from the iBook keyboard and spun around on her stool. Kip Sampson, a regular at the Buttered Bean Diner, sat in his usual booth, having what he liked to refer to as his breakfast of champions: three over easy, black coffee, and a Winston unfiltered.

What do you mean? she asked.

Index fingers only, pounding the piss out of the thing. Kip gestured accordingly.

Is that so?

It’s not a criticism. Way it should be done, you ask me.

Thanks for the tip. I never took you for a writer.

"I’m not a writer, but I read the paper every day. I know what’s good and what ain’t. Had an old buddy in Korea, wrote for Stars and Stripes. I used to watch him pound on his little Remington all the time. He told me once that if your fingers aren’t bruised when you finish grinding out a story, chances are it’s crap."

That’s fascinating. Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m on a deadline.

What are you working on?

Savannah went back to typing. Piece on the Archaeology Club’s field trip to Glen Rose.

Where the dinosaur tracks are?

That’s the one.

What’d I miss? Don Paul Klevin, fellow regular, returned from the men’s room and took his seat in the booth, opposite Kip.

Savannah here’s doing a Lois Lane on dinosaur prints for the school paper.

No kiddin’?

Savannah started to run a spell check on her finished article.

Kip said, Look, I’m sure you got a good piece there and all, but it seems to me if you’re writin’ for the high school fish wrapper, you might as well be covering the biggest story in town.

I know what you’re going to say, and even if it was my beat, which it isn’t, I’m not interested.

Kip jabbed a thumb in her direction and looked to Don Paul. For the first time in Killington High School history, the Jackrabbits are one win away from the district championship game and she ain’t interested.

Don Paul shook his head ruefully.

The jukebox exchanged a Johnny Paycheck for a Hank Williams. Kip crushed out his cigarette and joined Savannah at the counter. How the hell could you not be interested?

I want to be a real reporter, not a sportswriter.

Gonna be a hell of a story. Already is.

Yeah, I can see the headline now: ‘Jackrabbits Choke Again, See You Next September.’ Not really much there.

Gotta dig, woman. Gotta dig.

Look, I’m the first to admit that my portfolio is in desperate need of some more newsworthy topics. But I’m sure something will come along that’s more significant than a stupid football game.

But this is more than just a news story. This is town history. Could be anyway.

Savannah approved a spelling change. Don’t know a thing about it.

Right, you’re fairly new in town. Well, if you got a few minutes for a quick history lesson . . .

I don’t.

"Fine. I’ll nutshell it for you. Might make a difference to you later. See, it’s like this: as far as football goes, the Killington Jack-rabbits have a history of playing like Jack-shit."

Not listening . . .

Sixty-nine losing seasons in seventy-eight years.

You don’t say . . .

Just to pull a few gems from the highlight reel: in sixty-two they didn’t make a first down until game seven . . .

Still not listening . . .

…and that was only because a desperation pass wedged itself into the tight end’s face mask.

Boy, did that one bring ’em to their feet, Don Paul said, reminiscing.

Savannah steered her mouse back and forth across the countertop, pointing and clicking.

"Last year against Lamar we had to put our punter on supplemental oxygen because of exhaustion. Our punter for chrissake! What’s that tell you about the Jackrabbits’ understanding of forward progress?"

Savannah clicked again. "Does pterodactyl really start with a p?"

"But now we’re eight and one going into tonight’s final game against Stanton High. Winner of that meets the Elmwood Badgers in the district championship game. That’s the Elmwood Badgers. The titans of two-A. Take into account the bad blood between the two towns, and we’re talking ’bout a real barn-burner."

Savannah hit Save, powered down, and slammed the laptop shut. She checked her watch and smiled. With time to spare…as always. One more coffee, Bernice, before I head to school?

Bernice McFay put down her sudoku book, buried her pencil in her hair bun, and crossed over to Savannah with a fresh pot. You headin’ back for the pep rally, honey?

I wouldn’t be caught dead there. Anyway, I have to set a layout for the paper.

Kip threw his arms up. All right, you go ahead and be the Woodward and Bernstein of field trips, but I’m telling you, you’re missing the big story.

I got an idea, Bernice said. How ’bout doing a profile on that quarterback, the Logan boy. You know, a human-interest kind of thing. Been startin’ for us all season, and he’s still pretty much a mystery.

Well, hell, Don Paul, I’m not dead yet. Not blind, either. You take six inches and fifteen pounds off Cole Logan and you got yourself a spittin’ image of Montgomery Clift. I used to carry pictures of Monty Clift around in my bra.

Cole Logan is a pig, Savannah said. He sits behind me in economics. He looks like a vagrant and smells like Pennzoil.

That’s probably from that motorbike he tears around on, Kip said. I’ll concede the kid’s a little rough around the edges.

White trash is what he is, said Don Paul.

Kip shrugged. Okay, so he’s from the wrong side of the tracks, but what chance did he have? His daddy was just plain sorry; up and run off last fall. And his mama’s since become the town whore.

But I’ll tell you one thing, said Don Paul. He can throw like Elway and scramble like ole what’s-his-name…the little fella out of BC.

Flutie.

Right, Kip, the kid scrambles just like Doug Flutie. And he’s six-three! Runs the forty in four-point-one. Just imagine what he could do if he cut down to a pack a day. He’s fast, all right.

He’s also a mouth breather, Savannah said.

Kip lit another Winston. Well, that mouth breather has led our boys to their best record ever. Of course, it didn’t hurt that we finally got us a good coach.

I’m not interested in the coach, Savannah snapped.

I’m just saying . . .

I told you, I’m not interested.

For a few seconds Hank Williams was the only one in the room saying anything. Bernice popped her Doublemint to break the silence. I hear he’s a loner, she said. Cole Logan, I mean. Usually not a good thing for a quarterback.

Not unusual for a criminal, though.

Kip sighed. Not that again, Don Paul.

Well, it’s true, ain’t it?

Savannah’s eyes shifted from one man to the other. "What? He’s a criminal? Like, seriously?"

Ah, the boy got in a little trouble last year, Kip answered. Weren’t no big thing.

Only if you consider grand larceny little, said Don Paul.

Kip shrugged. This is old news, Don Paul. Logan was still seventeen at the time, couldn’t even be tried as an adult. They gave him the standard swift kick in the ass, threatened him with a one-way ticket to Parris Island if he didn’t straighten hisself out, and it was case closed.

Savannah asked Kip what Cole had stolen.

A set of TaylorMades and a Buick Reatta.

From the mayor, Don Paul added.

Can we move past this now? Kip asked.

Yeah, Don Paul agreed. Hell, I could care less if Logan’s a criminal, long as he can run a good bootleg. He stood and went to plug the jukebox.

You don’t know Black Mona? Bernice said. She’s been a regular here for years. Stay in this town long enough, you’ll hear a lot about her. She’s an odd one, I’ll tell you that.

Odd? Kip put on a fake smile, offered the old woman a wave. Through clenched teeth he muttered, She’s crazier than a rat in a shithouse.

Savannah watched the woman slide into the first booth by the window. She looked like a cross between a sideshow Gypsy and Norma Desmond. Even at a distance Savannah could hear the rattle of her earrings, which looked like tiny gold chandeliers dangling from sagging lobes. A tangled mass of matching necklaces hung from her neck.

What’s her story, Kip?

All I know is that she’s a crazy old spinster that lives across the tracks and spends most of her time talking to her cats. Rumor in town is that she’s into black magic. You know, voodoo-mojo types of stuff.

Do you really believe any of that, Kip? Bernice asked.

Well, I don’t put much stock in it, but I can tell you one thing: Couple years back, old Chip Simmons accidentally scratched her station wagon with a shopping cart in the Kroger parking lot. Tight bastard that Chip is, he didn’t even leave a note. Next morning he wakes up with an unfortunate combination of shingles and lockjaw.

Coincidence? Savannah asked.

Kip rolled his shoulders. You tell me. Only other thing I know about her is that she never misses a Jackrabbits football game. The woman loves her football.

Well, I better go take her order, Bernice said. Keep the hexes away. She winked at Savannah. Coffee’s on the house, honey. Just make sure I get a copy of that dinosaur story, you hear?

Sure, thanks. Savannah turned to Kip. It’s been riveting, as always, but I have to get to school. See you tomorrow. She slid the laptop into her backpack, then took out her iPod and fiddled with the dial.

One more game, Savannah, just one more game. We win tonight against Stanton High and we’re finally in the big one—the district championship game against Elmwood Heights.

You’ve said as much.

Elmwood Heights is out for blood.

You said that, too.

Tell me something. What do you know about the history of these two towns?

As much as I want to.

That’s what I thought. Allow me to paint you a picture.

Kip, I don’t have time for—

"We may share a border and a water supply, but the towns of Elmwood and Killington couldn’t be more different. They were both named for wildcatters back in the Great Boom of the thirties. Slocum Elmwood and T. K. Killington had been lifelong friends when they pooled their pennies together, dug two wells eight miles apart, and agreed to share the profits if one of them hit. Guess which one hit? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t the one tapped into the dirt under our asses.

"You can probably figure out the rest. Opulent wealth suited Slocum Elmwood so well, he decided to screw T. K. Killington out of his share. Not long after, Mr. Killington hung hisself from an abandoned derrick. Slocum Elmwood, on the other hand, went on to lord happily over a thriving boomtown until the day he died some nine years later, choking on a rare leg of lamb. To say that us Killingtonians are still carrying a bit of a grudge would be an understatement. To this day, Slocum Elmwood has